


These Sunflower Days

by Gileonnen



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Casual Affectionate Death Threats, Festival of the Lost, M/M, Sex in a Maintenance Shaft, Shin Malphur's Desperate Need for Therapy, Snuggling and Handholding, Spicy Garlic Ramen, Symbolic Sunflowers, Unsafe Welding Practices, fond bickering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-20
Updated: 2019-11-20
Packaged: 2021-02-13 17:06:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21497539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gileonnen/pseuds/Gileonnen
Summary: It's been three months since Drifter's tried to kill him, so Shin figures that means they're going steady now.Shin Malphur goes to visit Drifter during the Festival of the Lost.
Relationships: The Drifter/Shin Malphur
Comments: 7
Kudos: 101





	These Sunflower Days

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tanyart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tanyart/gifts).

It's been three months since Drifter's tried to kill him, so Shin figures that means they're going steady now.

He finds himself making little gestures--shaving his jaw before he comes down to chase Shadows through the streets of the Last City. Putting a bit of lotion in his hair to soften it after he's worked the grime and blood free with bar soap. Never anything so frivolous as flowers or rings ... but now and then, the two of them split takeout from the same box, and their chopsticks click like the gentle music of wooden chimes. Drifter might pull a glove free to tousle Shin's hair. It's good.

The part of him that Dredgen Yor honed into a blade rebels at this primping. _There is evil in the world,_ it whispers as he chooses between two different brown-violet shaders. _While you make yourself soft for him, that evil festers._

Most days, Shin can ignore it.

His cloak tumbles down around his shoulders, green as a Gambit token, and he transmats down to the Wall. Let them think it's a banner of allegiance. He can't say they'd be wrong.

This time, there's a festival on, and Guardians are tumbling in and out of an Infinite Forest hack with masks tied around their helmets. They scream with laughter, clambering up crooked trees and dancing skeleton-clad on the awning of Master Rahool's stall. In the warm candlelight, amid the gleaming paper lanterns, a thousand sunflowers raise their faces skyward.

He picks up some takeout ramen on the way down to the Annex. The cashier gives him a nod of recognition at the order--black garlic oil, extra spice and chashu tofu. "When he orders," the cashier confides, "he gets the pickled mushrooms. Hot tip."

Shin's face is an unreadable mask. "Hmm. Could I get some pickled mushrooms in this?"

"Sure. Just this once, it's on the house. Since you're a regular."

He isn't sure how he feels about being a regular, but he's never been one to ignore a hot tip. And the pickled mushrooms smell heavenly.

Down the metal stairs, past dusty vending machines glowing like lanterns in the dimness. Across cracked white tiles strewn with autumn leaves. Into the commingled dark and light of Drifter's alcove.

There are sunflowers here, too, and enough candles to burn back the radiant darkness of the Bank. Shin would almost say it looked romantic, if it weren't so obvious Drifter's fixing to go to war with the City's fire codes.

"How you livin'?" Drifter calls, without looking up from his worktable. He's threading a filament of Arc Light through a welding machine along with a copper-sheathed steel wire, building up metal on the barrel of some kitbashed gun. "Just a sec, gotta strike while the iron's hot and all that--"

"Take your time," says Shin, and the sound of his voice makes Drifter's welding hand fly wild.

"Shit!" Hot metal skids across the gun in ugly trails like scars. That thread of Arc Light snaps free, and the welding wand drops to the table. "Whatever happened to knocking? That old habit die out after the Red War?"

"You don't have a door," Shin answers. He puts the bag of takeout on the worktable, then dumps the noodles and vegetables in with the broth while Drifter grumbles and fetches them bowls and chopsticks.

While the gunmetal cools into a new, ragged shape, they lean back against the rail to eat. Drifter eats dog-style, bowl close to his lips, pausing every now and then to sip down the rich, hot broth. Shin watches him, his dexterous fingers and his lips shining with the fat of the soup, and waits for him to break the silence.

"Wasn't all that long ago that I saw you in my doorway, and I knew I'd run out of luck," Drifter says eventually. "Call it instinct. Self-preservation. A little early warning from that part of your body that remembers it can die."

Shin remembers the Guardians capering with skeletons gleaming from their gear, and he dips his head to hide a wry smile. "It's the season for remembrances."

Drifter snorts. "You buy into that whole Festival of the Lost shit? Candy and masks, people walking around with my face?"

"Mm." Shin tilts back his bowl and drinks deep. There was a time when the Festival of the Lost might've meant something to him, when he might've needed it to put a shape to his grief--lighting a candle for lost fathers, cutting sunflowers for a windowsill, finding friends to run the Infinite Forest with him. Setting a boundary line around the ache until he could learn to step outside its borders.

Those days are long since gone, though. Grief is his country, and he can't find its edges.

He leans against Drifter's shoulder and steals a piece of pickled mushroom from his bowl. "Some people think it's fun to get scared."

"Sure, it's fun right up until you put your Golden Gun between their eyes."

"Then it's a party."

"Well, I'll be damned!" Drifter crows. "Shin Malphur just made a joke. Someone better tell the Vanguard." He steals some chashu tofu, rolling it neatly between his chopsticks. Without his pauldrons to get in the way, his shoulder is solid and warm beneath Shin's.

They finish their ramen and then just rest there a while. Shin lets himself relax, ghosting his lips over Drifter's jaw, smelling hot lightning and metal in the sweat on Drifter's neck.

These are the moments Shin likes best--the quiet ones, where their bodies bend inexorably toward each other and the rancor bleeds out of their bickering. Where death is a guest but he can see where it sits.

"You planning to fall asleep there?" Drifter asks eventually. His elbow grazes Shin's ribs; the back of his hand fits into the hollow of Shin's palm. "Or are you gonna let me drag you somewhere more comfortable?"

_You've made yourself soft,_ a spiteful part of him whispers, but right now, he wants to be soft. He wants Drifter's fingers inside him, the weight of him bowing Shin's legs open; he wants the kind of long kisses that leave his mouth raw and aching. Shin meets Drifter's eyes and asks, "Where do you want to fuck me?"

Drifter grins, sharp and feral, and drags Shin into a kiss with teeth.

They fetch up in a maintenance shaft heady with steam, pressed up against a service ladder. There's barely room between the thick pipes for the two of them to fuck--but by then they're undoing buckles and rucking up shirts, and they can't get close enough. Shin prints himself in crescent bites on Drifter's throat; Drifter claws down Shin's chest with his gloves still on, and just the _promise_ of nails sears welts into Shin's skin.

"Ready for you," Shin grunts, but Drifter only laughs and palms his cock.

"Party's just getting started."

Their kisses taste like garlic and spice, salt and brine, and Shin can't begin to sate himself on them. Drifter kisses as though it's a war, as though it's something he can win through tactics or trickery; he maps every vulnerability with teeth and tongue until Shin has no choice but to open for him.

Shin was never taught to surrender, but he's a quick learner.

By the time Shin turns to brace himself against the ladder, his lips are swollen with kisses, and his pulse pounds loud in his ears. He could get off like this, just Drifter's thumb working slow circles around the head of his cock until he comes apart--filth whispered low against his ear, maybe, so close that he can feel the way Drifter grins.

He doesn't want it like that. Shin arches his back until he can feel Drifter's cock graze the cleft of his ass, and he rocks back into it. "C'mon, fuck me," he growls, and doesn't care how ragged he sounds. "I'm ready; I need you inside me--"

Drifter chuckles and lets his hand fall to Shin's hip. Shin imagines how his eyes must shine in the emergency lights. "Can't argue with that."

The click of a bottle opening; Drifter's slick fingertip easing down between Shin's cheeks, so maddeningly slowly. "Fuck you," Shin whispers as Drifter circles his hole, tracing the ring of it until everything feels slick and hot and _not enough_. "Fuck you so much--"

Against Shin's ear, so close that the heat of his breath makes Shin shiver, Drifter asks, "That a promise?"

His finger slides in, slow and sweet and easy.

Shin closes his eyes, blocks out the ladder rungs and the jetting steam, and lets his world condense to that single red point of pleasure. The stretch as he opens up under Drifter's hand; the slickness of the lube; the glorious friction when Drifter slides back to work in another finger.

Shin loses himself in it. The wariness and the grief and the rage all fall away as he gives himself over to the sensation of being filled. He drives himself back onto Drifter's fingers, into the pressure and heat of him, until nothing is left of Shin but flesh and Light and yearning.

Drifter's hand curls around the knob of Shin's hip, steadying him, steadying Drifter against him. His cock is thick and perfect when it slides home.

Shin rides the pleasure to its crest, and pulls Drifter down after him.

Shin lets himself linger in the aftermath, leaning against the wall with Drifter and catching his breath. For a moment, Drifter just tilts his head back and closes his eyes, looking so sated and wrecked that Shin wants to see if he can coax another round out of him. "You going to head out again?" Drifter asks, when the moment passes.

_You'll make yourself soft,_ say those scrabbling thoughts that always urge Shin to cut ties. And they're right. If he stays here long enough, amid the sunflowers and candles and the feeling of being wanted, he might start to think there's a place for him here.

He pushes those thoughts down and says, "I think I'll stay for a while, actually. This is good."


End file.
